If a pub with 100 seats or 250 seats is OK, what about a nightclub with room for 600?

Or a drinking hall with room for 1,400?

The City of Edmonton planning office is weighing the fate of two controversial development permits for Edmonton’s historic Warehouse District.

The first application is to open a “neighbourhood pub” with room for 596 people, on the ground floor of the new Fox 2 condo tower currently going up on 104 Street. It certainly wouldn’t be the first bar on the hipster promenade, already home to the Mercer Tavern, Kelly’s Pub, the Cavern Wine Bar and several licensed restaurants. But it would be by far the biggest bar on the cosy street — and hardly a “pub” in any traditional sense.

Yet that proposal pales in comparison to the “major amusement establishment” planned for the old Mother’s Music site on 109 Street and 102 Avenue with capacity for 1,400 — right across the street from Railtown’s condos and seniors homes.

The plans are being represented by a firm called CK Design. No one from CK returned calls Monday.

Peter Ohm, chief city planner, says both locations are zoned for pubs with a maximum capacity of 100. Anything larger than that is a discretionary use, at the discretion of city planners. There will be no public hearing and city council won’t be involved. The city will issue a decision within the next 30 days, says Ohm. Anyone who doesn’t like it can appeal to the quasi-judicial Subdivision and Development Appeal Board. After that, the only recourse is to the Court of Queen’s Bench.

“We’re getting lots of feedback, and it’s not support,” says Ohm.

Ohm says the city wants more vibrancy, more nightlife in the downtown core, especially in vacant spaces. That’s been a planning priority for years.

“But it’s a question of impact and scale. How much is too much? How much vibrancy can you handle?”

Certainly, the Downtown Edmonton Community League is not raising a toast to these proposals. The community league argues the bars would diminish the quality of life for the residents of the Warehouse District’s “urban village,” discourage future residential development, and put the district’s new Alex Decouteau Park at risk of being trashed by unruly patrons.

“It’s a question of scale and scope,” says community league president Chris Buyze. “104 Street in particular is primarily a residential street. This will upset the balance to the street.”

Ward 6 Coun. Scott McKeen, who represents the downtown, says he has “grave concerns” about these “industrial-grade saloons.”

“Downtown is not about mega-monster bars,” says McKeen. “These are out-of-context for a downtown that’s trying to develop new and different urban experiences that set it apart from other parts of town.”

Now, the downtown of a city of one million people is not supposed to be peaceful and quiet. We want development and business in the city core. A condo between Jasper Avenue and Ice District isn’t in Windermere or Summerside. A downtown is supposed to have nightlife, not a 9 p.m. curfew.

After a concert or game at Rogers Place, people are going to want to go for a drink with friends. The Warehouse District borders the MacEwan University campus and envelopes NorQuest College.

We can’t limit the area to wine bars and gastro-pubs. Sports fans and undergrads need mass-market places to party, too. And anyone who thought that building a huge sports arena across the avenue wasn’t going to change the character of the Warehouse District is woefully naive.

Still, these mega-bars are just too big. They won’t just be noisy and disruptive. Their high concentration of drinkers could create real policing issues. The 104 Street Promenade just won international Purple Flag accreditation as a safe entertainment district. The last thing we want is to make downtown feel menacing instead of vibrant. We’ve already seen how licensing too many bar seats in a small heritage area undermined the charm of Old Strathcona and made Whyte Avenue sketchy by night. We shouldn’t repeat that mistake.

Giant big-box bars of this type tend to stay closed during the day — and sometimes during most weeknights. They often only open on Friday and Saturday nights. That means big hollow spaces sit vacant much of the week, draining life from the street. That’s not vibrancy at all.

We need a better, smarter vision for our Warehouse District, a sensible compromise that doesn’t make a mockery of existing zoning and previous city planning. Bigger isn’t always better. And too much of a good thing isn’t good at all.

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